


Glochids

by ruasquirrel



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Melancholy, Mild Blood, Minor Injuries, Sad, Steven removes the cactus spines and thinks about his life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-23
Updated: 2020-01-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:46:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22373578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ruasquirrel/pseuds/ruasquirrel
Summary: "A horrid feeling of shame crawled its way up his spine at the thought of it. The Gems knew now that something wasn’t quite right with him. They knew, and now that it had been confirmed they were bound to keep hounding him with questions. With ‘are you okay’s and ‘do you want to talk’s.The answer to both of which was a resounding ‘no’.He wasn’t okay, and he didn’t want to talk about it."--Steven sets about the grisly task of removing cactus needles from his skin.
Comments: 20
Kudos: 136





	Glochids

**Author's Note:**

> Did someone say messy vent fic? No? Well, you got one anyway lmao

This was supposed to be the thing that made him feel better.

The stone floor upon which he sat was cold and uninviting, soil, needles and shards of ceramic strewn across the pristine polished surface.

‘ _It’s not fair’_ , he thought, but then, when had his life ever been fair?

The Gems were downstairs, putting up a tarpaulin sheet and sweeping cactus needles, whispering amongst themselves and casting uneasy glances towards the stairway. In the aftermath of Cactus Steven’s rampage, the house had been left ruined, and painfully silent. A question had been asked, then answered, and none of them knew what to do with it.

“It’s not fair,” he uttered aloud, knowing there was nobody around to hear him.

Steven had quickly grown tired of the atmosphere and absconded to the dome.

“I’ll go clean upstairs, he broke the glass,” was all he had said as he turned and hurriedly climbed the stairs, still clutching the rosy bloom he had been gifted.

In hindsight, he realised how selfish it must be to cause all this damage and then leave the Gems to deal with it. Though, truth be told, he didn’t expect them to fix any of it. He was perfectly capable of putting up a sheet by himself, and perfectly willing to sweep up the needles and debris which now finely coated every inch of his living room. The coffee table had broken when he fell onto it, too, a fact which he remembered upon feeling a twinge of pain in his back. He was more than willing to suffer a few splinters cleaning up that mess, too.

But something about the silence of that room had been so oppressive, so pressurising, so focused on _him_ and _his_ presence that he just couldn’t bear it any longer. The Gems were left speechless and hesitant to move on account of his proximity, and as bad as the silence was, he feared the breaking of it even more. So, with cactus needles still embedded in his skin, he fled.

His bedroom was littered with the things, his bed included. There was no hope of crawling under the covers and sleeping the day away, then.

Upon entering the dome, Steven found himself floundering. He walked back and forth aimlessly, seeking a place to set down his precious cargo, surveying the damage, taking note of the burning irritation in his skin that refused to let him settle. Most cactus blooms only last a day, he noted internally, and that was when they were still attached to the plant. By this time tomorrow, the delicate flower he was desperately seeking a place for will have wilted. Completing another restless lap of the room, Steven let out a defeated sigh and set it down on his workbench. Loose, solitary and without nourishment; destined to waste away and not a thing he could do to prevent it.

He tried to take some time to reflect, but the bothersome spines planted into his skin demanded his attention, pulling him out of his brief melancholy. He poked and prodded at a few of the clusters, which served only to cause a sharp sting of pain in his fingertip. He stopped himself just short of shoving his finger in his mouth, realising that would only further complicate the situation.

Another heavy sigh escaping his lips, he pulled his phone from his pocket and conducted a quick yet thorough internet search regarding the most effective methods of cactus needle removal.

Glochids, which he now knew as the proper name for the terrible little spines coating his skin, were barbed, caused dermal irritation, and were an all-round pain in the butt to remove. He also learned, much to his dismay, that even the most effective methods didn’t work 100%. Many of them would remain embedded in his skin, lying in wait to cause another flare up, to remind him once again of this terrible day and all the terrible feelings that came along with it.

He supposed it was all he deserved, really. Some sort of karmic retribution for letting the situation spiral as badly out of control as it did.

Letting out a huff, he gathered up the necessary tools; a pair of tweezers, and a bottle of PVA glue which he had dug out from underneath his workbench. Eager to get started and relieve himself of the constant needling burn in his skin, he forewent finding something to sit on and plopped down on the floor, legs crossed and brow furrowed.

He clicked the tweezers together experimentally, once, twice, then three times as he worked up the nerve to start on the first cluster. His eyes roved his exposed skin, taking inventory of the intrusive additions to his usually peachy complexion; now reddened and prickling.

He inhaled sharply through his nostrils, and started plucking.

“It’s not fair,” he murmured, and winced as he tore out a large, angry spine.

‘ _What isn’t fair is the fact the Gems have to put up with you’_ , his inner voice bitterly corrected.

Pluck.

What on Earth, he wondered, happened between then and now to make him like this?

Pluck.

Why on Earth did he think gardening was a good idea? Why had he failed so miserably, despite being so _good_ at it?

Pluck.

How on Earth was he supposed to find purpose, after doing the one thing he could never hope to surpass? How could he maintain the reputation he had created for himself, after peaking at the tender age of 14 years old?

Where in the _cosmos_ was he supposed to go from here?

Three more frustrated plucks in quick succession, and he noticed the tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. Letting out a hiss through clenched teeth, he realised too late that he’d done more damage than good. A fair amount of the larger spines had been removed, leaving in their wake a rash of tiny pockmarks. Pinpricks of red made their way to the surface, dotting his skin with tiny spots of blood, freshly shed and barely present.

A reminder of his human condition, he supposed. Gems didn’t bleed, after all. Not real the real ones, anyway.

As jarring as his arm appeared at first glance, reddened and blood-spotted as it was, in truth there was likely no more than one or two millilitres of the stuff. Besides, the damage would be easily repaired. All he had to do was run his tongue along his arm and it would be as if it had never happened.

‘ _If only all my problems could be solved that easily_ ’, he despaired.

He clicked his tweezers again, and returned to his grisly work.

For the longest time, he had carried the weight of his broken family on his inexperienced shoulders. He didn’t begrudge the weight, as heavy and exhausting as it had been, but it left him fatigued in ways he was only just beginning to understand.

But now? Now that they didn’t need him anymore, now that that weight had disappeared? He wanted nothing more than to have it back. Fettered and useful was still a more appealing circumstance than free and purposeless. The days and the nights ahead stretched endlessly before him, and the days behind wavered and amalgamated into one indistinguishable mass, dark and empty and utterly numb. Nothing to strive towards, nothing to drive him forward. No-one on Earth with a single reason to keep him around, and three gems with every reason to cast him aside and forget the trouble he caused.

From young prodigy to household disaster and resident inconvenience, he’d fallen treacherously back to being bottom rung, and he no longer had the energy to even try climbing back up.

Jerking the last graspable needle from his skin with more force than needed, he set his tweezers aside and set his arms down stiffly against his knees, turning them upwards to allow his burning skin access to the cool morning breeze which wafted through the broken dome. He sighed deeply, and for the first time that morning it felt just a little bit satisfying.

Something needed to be done about that broken pane, and the glass strewn about the floor, he noted as he allowed his eyes to wander. The broken pots and the soil would need cleaned up, too. Fine by him, and he’d take his sweet time doing it, too. Anything to keep him away from the suffocating cloud that enveloped the house below.

A horrid feeling of shame crawled its way up his spine at the thought of it. The Gems knew now that something wasn’t quite right with him. They knew, and now that it had been confirmed they were bound to keep hounding him with questions. With ‘are you okay’s and ‘do you want to talk’s.

The answer to both of which was a resounding ‘no’.

He wasn’t okay, and he didn’t want to talk about it. Like his gardening, it was sure to turn out to be more trouble than it’s worth, more trouble than _he_ was worth, and he had the injuries to prove it. But they were worried about him, all because he couldn’t keep his stupid mouth shut. All because he couldn’t resist dumping his emotional baggage on a poor, unsuspecting creature of his own creation.

‘ _Don’t you dare even think about doing the same to the Gems_ ’, he warned himself, ‘ _You’re supposed to be a healer, not a burden.’_

He looked to the glass shards on the floor next to him, briefly admiring the way the light reflected off the broken edges. He then looked to his arms, and noticed the surprising lack of needling discomfort in his skin. He must have gotten the worst of them. The stragglers were too small to be removed using tweezers, and thus required a different method. Steven absentmindedly reached for the PVA glue, before pausing, stopping to think about what he was doing. His arms were still covered in tiny puncture holes, now sealed over by brown specks. Surely slathering PVA glue on top of broken, irritated skin wasn’t a good idea?

He glanced at his phone, sitting on the tile with the screen darkened. None of the articles had mentioned stopping to soothe his skin between steps, had they? Would there really be any harm in wiping his arms with a wet cloth, or applying some aloe vera? He then glanced towards the door. There’d be no damp cloths or soothing serums to speak of if he couldn’t pluck up the courage to face a gauntlet of prying gems.

After much consideration, Steven concluded that he wasn’t feeling brave, and remained in his spot.

He shook his head, scoffed at his own cowardice. What a mess he had made, to end up being afraid of facing his own family. What a disappointment he turned out to be, to have faced dire odds and intergalactic conflict unflinchingly, only to cower in the face peace time, to fear the mundane.

He wondered if Connie ever felt like this, like the future was scarier than the past.

Once again, he scoffed, louder and more bitterly this time. She would be disappointed too, to see him like this. She had her plan, didn’t she? Go to college, live her life, do whatever humans did as part of a human society. The thought of her leaving him behind pained him greatly, and he chided himself for being selfish enough to feel that way. If she left for college and drifted away, then so be it, he had no right to drag her down with him. No right to cry, or resent, or beg her to stay by his side whilst he desperately scraped up his own broken pieces. That was two years away yet, he reminded himself, but to be truthful, he couldn’t even bear to think about where he’d be by then. The bitterest, most jaded part of him hated the thought of recovery just as much as he hated the present moment. Something about imagining himself in a future time, content, carefree and fulfilled, was too sickly sweet for him to handle, like heavy cream on a sour stomach.

Or maybe it was the hunger that was making him feel so sick.

He hadn’t been able to stop and grab breakfast, in his hasty retreat. And now he sat alone, skin burning and sick to his stomach, unable to bear the thought of running down to the kitchen to get something to eat. He briefly wondered if any of his plants were edible, but quickly dismissed the very idea of it. He had a whole day ahead of him, and every hour of it was seeming more and more unpleasant.

Resigned to his fate, he picked up the bottle of glue.

It was cool against his inflamed skin, providing him with some small relief. At least now he had the odd satisfaction of peeling dried bits of glue off his arms to look forward to. But he would have to wait for it to dry first, which meant more silence, more stillness, and more opportunity for his mind to wander places he’d really rather it kept its nose out of. He tapped the unlock button on his phone, bringing him face to face with the digital clock. It had barely been half an hour since the cactus’ departure. The Gems were going to come looking for him, sooner or later, and he had the sinking feeling they weren’t content to let him pretend anymore.

And so he waited, surrounded by soil and broken glass, early morning breeze rustling the leaves inside his greenhouse, as he watched the glue dry and crack upon his damaged skin.

This was going to be a long, long day.

**Author's Note:**

> This one had been sitting untouched as a half-finished WIP since a little while after Prickly Pair ended, so I took advantage of it to vent a little  
> Me and Steven are in a very similar situation at the moment, haha


End file.
